Russian Meteorite Explosion: Iowa City Had A Similar Encounter... Almost Exactly 138 Years Ago

People the world over were buzzing Friday about a meteorite that exploded over Russia early Friday morning injuring hundreds of people and causing damages to buildings.

Meteorite explodes over Russia, more than 1000 injured 

CHELYABINSK, Russia (REUTERS)

A meteorite streaked across the sky and exploded over central Russia on Friday, raining fireballs over a vast area and causing a shock wave that smashed windows, damaged buildings and injured 1,200 people.

Video technology is pervasive enough these days that the event could capture be captured from multiple angles:

Related: (NYT Video) A Meteor Streaking Through the Sky from Six Vantage Points

Unfortunately, technology was not that good back in 1875, when a similar event was said have taken place above Iowa City almost on the very same date. To relive this experience, we must rely on accounts gathered by a local astronomer and surveyor, C.W. Irish, in his text "An Account of the Detonating Meteor of February 12, 1975." The text was printed by a press located on Dubuque Street in Iowa City, according to University of Iowa librarian Colleen Theisen.

Theisen unearthed the text and shared pages of it on the University of Iowa Library Blog, including additional pages wth illustrations of the meteorite based on eyewitness accounts. More photos from the text are available at the link

According to Theisen, Irish wrote of the event:

“the length of the train was variously estimated…from seven to twelve miles, as seen from Iowa City. From three to five minutes after the meteor had flashed out of sight, observers near to the south end of its path heard an intensely loud and crashing explosion, that seemed to come from the point in the sky where they first saw it.”

Not quite as exciting as the account of the Russian event (see below), but hey, at least we can claim a meteorite explosion of our very own. As for why meteorites seem to hit the Earth near Valentine's Day, I'll leave it for you to judge.

Slate Blog [FOLLOWUP] Russian Meteorite Fragment May Have Hit Lake

Around 09:30 local time, a huge meteor came in over western Russia. The trail it left in the sky was 320 kilometers (200 miles) long, it shone as brightly as the Sun, and the shock wave of its passage through the air blew out windows, sending glass flying and injuring (at last report) nearly a thousand people^*. It was caught on hundreds of videos in some of the most dramatic footage of any event I’ve ever seen. The shots of the trail it left in the sky alone are jaw-dropping.